Parenting conference offers tips on strengthening families

A conference Thursday gave parents and child-care professionals an opportunity to fill in the blanks.

The "Building Stronger Families: Tools For Success" parenting conference attracted just under 1,000 participants to the Lt. Gen. William Edgar Murphy Armed Guard Reserve Center, according to Kelly Northcott, city of Lubbock health educator.

Thirty sessions were scheduled mainly dealing with teaching children responsibility, administering discipline and building communication.

Soyla Reyna, a single mother of five teens, traveled from Post to attend the conference. She also attended last year's conference.

Items she grasped from the conference were coping skills and using patience during discipline.

She said another important aspect that was emphasized was augmenting trust between a parent and child through communication.

Curtis Draper, who has two small children, mainly came to the conference for his job as an at-risk youth counselor with Catholic Family Services.

He especially enjoyed the discussion on discipline by Quincy White, executive director of the Lubbock Housing Authority.

Draper said the focus was that nonabusive discipline was needed more. In the past, he said, if others in a neighborhood saw a child misbehaving they would exact discipline even if it wasn't their child. Today, people are more skittish to do that, he said.

"The whole community raised that child," Draper said. "If discipline is needed, you should administer it."

In his profession, Draper said a major problem is that children listen more to their peers than to their parents.

Northcott said this is the fourth year the conference has been held.

"We tried to get local people professionals that work with families that the participants can access after a session," Northcutt said.